For over a year now I have been facing the prospect of having to make a very important decision. I’ve been postponing and postponing it, but now I’ve reached the point where I have to make a choice. This decision will have a large impact on my life; it will directly influence the next three to five years, and may even have repercussions beyond that. Part of the problem of not being able to make a decision was that I was having serious financial problems lately, and it’s my firm belief that any important decision should not be made when you’re in a funk. These financial problems are not quite over yet, but their urgency is gone and hopefully in a couple of months I’ll be able to look back and not get a headache any more. But now I’m reaching the point where any further postponement of that decision may have even more serious consequences.
As always I approached my decision-making with my usual analysis. I know this is professional deformation (I’m a systems analyst), but it’s how I do these things. And the weird part was, I came up with distinct choices. No grey areas, no overlappings. As proof that real life is not about black & white decisions, my list of possible choices contained nine scenarios. Granted, some of these scenarios are similar in one respect or other, but they are distinct nonetheless. Since these scenarios contained all possible choices, I was able to mark six of them as non-viable. These six scenarios would either leave me with regrets in the long term, have (nearly) immediate serious consequences or even would be impossible for me to live with. So then there were three.
I’ve gone over them and gone over them and now have given them a kind of grade; which solution seems the most preferable to me, which is next and which is last. I know I really should talk this over with someone, or even some people, but that’s something I have a lot of problems with. I tried to get the subject started with my best friend, but this particular problem is something he has no experience with whatsoever. I thought about talking this over with my parents and/or sister, but I didn’t want to burden them with my problems. I know they have been worrying about my financial troubles, and this they can do without. I’ve been on the SDMB only for a little while now, but I saw this as a possible solution. It may seem strange to present such an important decision to people I have never even met, but from what I have read from the various discussions I know that most of the people here are very well informed, and are perfectly able to make a judgement call. The fact that I have a good degree of anonymity because of the use of a screen name makes it a little easier for me to come to you with such a personal question. And it’s not that I want to walk away from my responsibility; any decision I make will ultimately be mine. It’s more that I would like to hear from you what you think the consequences of any scenario could be. There’s always the possibility that I have overlooked an aspect of the decision I’m about to make.
I want to thank everyone in advance for taking the time to read this. I’ll present the problem and the scenarios for a solution below, and I will be most grateful for any input you’ll be able to give me. During the holidays I will probably come to a decision, seeing as this is the season for introspection. I will think about letting you all know this decision, but because of the personal nature of my plight I might do this on a person to person basis, rather than posting it this way.
Thanks,
Hans (SkinnyGuy)
So, the big question and its possible answers. Should I get a grey, a black or a beige Toyota Avensis?
